119: Zen versus Daily Life part three

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Posture
Assume the posture —
but don’t take it for granted;
it’s not what you think.

In the introductory segment to this UnMind series, we posited that amongst the many dimensions of everyday life, there are several contrasting pairs and sets of ideas that may be usefully employed to illustrate how our pursuit of a more comprehensive Zen life might be framed, including:

Lifestyle: Monastic versus Householder
Physical: Zazen versus the four Cardinal Postures
Biological: Meditative breathing versus everyday situations
Psychological: Shikantaza versus ordinary attention

Of course, it is impossible to truly separate these dimensions in the living dynamic of daily life, as will be seen, but it is necessary in order to simplify the presentation. In this segment, as promised, we will primarily discuss one of the physical dimensions: the zazen posture: upright sitting versus the four Cardinal Postures: normal sitting, standing, walking, and lying down. In context of the complexity of physical existence — which of course includes the biological and psychological, which we will take up at a later time — for now we want to focus simply on posture, specifically the zazen posture, which is very specific in itself. But we will get into its relationship to other aspects of posture, such as sitting at your desk, driving in traffic, running and crawling.

Remember where this all begins. It is something of a stretch to even regard the proprioception of an infant — their awareness of the disposition of their body in space — as a “posture.” Swaddled in their mother’s or father’s arms, lying in the crib, et cetera, the baby is probably only dimly aware of its separation from the environment, let alone the various postures its body assumes. Then as we grow, we learn to raise our head, prop our shoulders up off the mattress with our arms, turn over, sit up, and eventually stand, pulling ourselves up with the side of the crib. Eventually we escape the crib onto the floor, where we gradually learn to stand without assistance, and take the first tentative steps of our larger sweepout into the world.

Recall that before we sit, we are lying down; before we stand, we sit; before we walk, we crawl; before we run, we walk. There is a natural hierarchy of posture development, mostly determined by that relentless teacher, gravity. We will return to an examination of gravity on the cushion. Sitting, as Zen’s primary posture, is not an arbitrary choice.

Consider lying down as our initial posture, and when we are most at rest. It is the least aggressive of postures, an attribute captured by the common trope, usually expressed as an admonition, not to “take it lying down.” In other words, to not let yourself be a “doormat,” letting others walk all over you. This is the typical stance of the self-reliant, American cult of the individual, and sometimes takes a dark turn these days, when someone feels “dissed,” especially in a public situation. All too often ending in deadly violence, with guns a-blazing. So, “posture” can have a non-physical, or psychological connotation as well: the posture, or stance, that we take up in social situations.

But let’s keep it simple for now. Consider the supine or prone position of lying down. Surprisingly to me, “supine” means face-up, and “prone” means face-down, according to the dictionary. Then we have the well-known “fetal position,” and all the “tossing-and-turning” variations associated with sleeping, or the ravages of insomnia, fed by anxiety.

However, as I mention in “The Original Frontier,” when lying down to sleep, we can shift gears from our usual approach to getting some shuteye, to one informed by zazen. When we engage the upright sitting posture of Zen, the main physical difference between it and lying down is the axis of the spine and spinal cord in relation to gravity. This may seem unimportant at first glance, but I think it is critical to the way zazen works. Coming into balance, direct vertical alignment with gravity, is one of the “secrets” of zazen. “Samadhi,” a jargon term of the meditation business, means, roughly, “balanced” or “centered,” or both. Sitting up straight is also characteristic of most styles of meditation on offer, but other approaches do not emphasize it as much as does Zen.

This explains the stress — no pun intended — on arching the small of the back, pushing forward and down; while stretching the back of the neck, tucking the chin in with the face slightly downcast; thus creating two pressure points, one in the base of the neck pulling upward, the other in the base of the spine where it joins the tailbone, pushing forward and down. Maintaining these two pressure points keeps the spine aligned in a rigorous, and vigorous pose that feels more like a comfortable, refreshing stretching action than ponderous, muscular resistance training. It has been likened to a lion or tiger ready to pounce (like the lion asana in yoga, but not as exaggerated). I like my own analogy of a cobra rising off the floor — ready to strike the unwary, maybe — but perhaps only dancing to the music of the snake-charmer’s flute.

The horizontal positions — prone or supine — obviously change the relationship of the spine to the effects of gravity. We all know that we shrink with age, owing to our vertical stance, which began long ago on the savannah, ever since we stopped running on all fours.

At a certain point in my life, it became clear that taking naps in the daytime might be a good idea. When I first attempted to sleep when tired, either physically or mentally or both, I found it very difficult. Everything, from the relatively bright daylight, to the ambient sound, was a distraction, and struggling to sleep in the midst of it just wore me out even more. I tried tamping down the volume to a dull roar, by wearing a blindfold and earplugs, which only seemed to make things worse I began to wonder why I could not sleep when I wanted to, when at other times it seemed relatively easy to nod off. I began to look for the “switch,” that cellular-level toggle that the brain throws when it switches from conscious awareness to the unconscious, or the dream state.

I resorted to just paying full attention to whatever was happening — the random airplane flying over, traffic on the street, sounds emanating from the neighbors, the birds, peepers and crickets — and especially to body sensations. At first, it was easy to concentrate on one part of the body at a time: my head on the pillow, which felt surprisingly heavy, once I lifted it and released it. The relatively lightweight impressions of the extremities — hands and feet — was also a bit of a surprise, while the mass of the trunk, and upper legs and arms, seemed to be where the unrest was centered. I had learned of the “relaxation response” during my past engagement with hatha yoga, so I began running through that in an orderly fashion, squeezing and relaxing various muscle groups one at a time. But the intentionality of the exercise seemed to keep me awake. It was only when I surrendered to the totality of what was happening — seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and thinking — sound familiar? — that I began to doze off. So yes, not zazen, but perhaps “neruzen” (in Japanese, za is “sit”; neru is “sleep”)

Later I learned a method which Hakuin Zenji, the famous 18th century Rinzai master, taught to his students, which you can find in either the first or second of Trevor Leggett’s early Zen readers. It is called “Naikan Tanden,” and has to do with synchronizing the breath with an exaggerated supine position. I will not go into detail here, but if you are interested in following up this thread, please let me know. Suffice it to say that one thing I discovered was that by stretching the body in an extreme, symmetrical supine position — flat on your back and extending the lower legs with feet pressed together, intoning the four visualizations Hakuin learned from his teacher — sure enough, after some time you begin to drop off. At the end of a long exhalation. Which we will talk about more in the segment on Zen breathing.

Recall the details of Master Dogen’s instructions for assuming the zazen posture, which we still follow, virtually verbatim, eight centuries later. Again, we will not go into detail here, assuming you have heard the instructions more than once by now. If not, again, do not hesitate to contact me. For now let’s look at another situation in which we find ourselves sitting: driving in rush hour traffic. The first podcast I ever recorded was called “Stress and Choice,” under the rubric of “Drive-time Zen.” I reasoned that the most stressful and common experience most of us have in modern times is the commute, to and from our place of employment. With the surge in remote working arrangements, this is changing somewhat, but in any major metropolitan area, is still predominate. The advent of self-driving vehicles may make a further dent in this dilemma, but that has its own stress-inducing aspects as well, so far as the technology has been refined to date.

So the amount of transfer, or halo-effect, that zazen can have on the driver’s seat may seem insignificant, especially if you haven’t tried it. Along with other Zen practices that we may take up later in the series, such as breathing, and even chanting, minor adjustments to your posture while driving can have an outsized effect. Simply sitting up straighter, applying the petal-to-the-metal approach to the lower spine, and pulling back on the chin to achieve the cobra posture, can help keep you alert and attentive to what is happening in front of your vehicle, behind it, and on both sides.

Our attention expands in zazen to take in everything, mitigating the possibility that you may get fixated on one aspect of the dangerous situation you are in — on the modern expressway at full speed — and helping you to maintain a degree of calmness while fully aware of the clear and present danger. It can also help you recognize that everyone else around you is in the same boat, but they may not have the advantage of training in the alert, upright posture of zazen. That is why they are doing foolish and dangerous things like speeding, jumping lanes, cutting others off, and generally making a bad situation much worse, in their heedless hurry to get where they are going. It reminds me of the line from Hsinhsinming—Trust in Mind:

Living in the Great Way is neither easy nor difficult
But those with limited views are fearful and irresolute
The faster they hurry the slower they go

Another specific suggestion will suffice to wrap this segment up; I will leave it to your creativity to conjure and discover more grafts from Zen practice, such as how your daily walking may be informed by your experience of walking meditation, or kinhin. The next time you find yourself doing some heavy lifting, such as yard work on a hot and muggy day, as I have been doing this summer, when you take a break to cool down and catch your breath, instead of slumping in a lawn chair, set a stool or bench in the shade and sit in the zazen posture, removing your work gloves and dropping your hands into the mudra, eyes downcast, et cetera. You should be able to feel and/or hear your heartbeat right away, if the exertion has been extreme enough, and you are probably panting at a rapid rate.

You might want to begin with counting the breath, but if and when you can hear or feel your heartbeat, count your pulse beating instead, and notice how many beats per cycle of breath, counting only the out-breath. If you are like me, you will notice that your breath soon slows down, and with it, your heartbeat. With each exhalation, let the lungs empty out as completely as comfortable; and allow a little pause before inhaling. As that moment becomes longer with each cycle, the inbreath becomes fuller, giving the body the oxygen it needs; and the exhalation becomes more like a sigh of relief, relaxing the body, the breath, and your heartrate. Soon you will be good to go again.

In the next segment, we will take up the unique approach to breathing characteristic of Zen. Meanwhile, keep breathing, of course, and slow down to the rapid rate of change of the present moment. You will be safer — and happier — because of it.